In a letter to MEPs on Monday 29 October, the aerospace industry ('Bundesverband der Deutschen Luft- und Raumfahrtindustrie' - BDLI) considers it necessary to apply the eligibility conditions provided for in the Regulation establishing the European Defence Fund to the European Space Programme Regulation.
The organisation wants to ensure greater coherence with other EU initiatives, the eligibility conditions for the proposed space programme should be consistent with the eligibility conditions established in the European Defence Industrial Programme (EDIDP, EDF) “which are by far the most stringent and adequate to safeguard the Union's security interests”.
"Therefore, the same eligibility conditions should apply to the Union's defence and space programmes", say the signatories of the letter, Marco Fuchs, Vice-President for Space Affairs, and Volker Thum, Director responsible for management at the BDLI.
In addition, the authors of the letter would like the European budget for space programmes to be increased to 18 billion euros (compared to 16 billion euros in the Commission's proposal - see EUROPE 12035, 12097).
They want to strengthen the aggregation of institutional demand for launchers, as well as the systematic preference for satellite data from European programmes, always with a view to supporting European industry and the development of a European ‘New Space’. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)